


More Effeminate Than You

by orphan_account



Category: South Park
Genre: Butters is a man he's just a very gentle man, F/M, This is not a Margarine fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 06:16:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13358250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Wendy loves her husband but nobody else seems to get it. She might as well be dating a woman.





	More Effeminate Than You

**Author's Note:**

> Just wanna say, I started this fic before the crab people fic so I'm not purposely trying to get a bunch of fics going at once. This is just a oneshot.
> 
> Also, do you know how rare it is for me to write het that isn't a side thing?

 

 _And you say you love me_  
_And that you'll be true_  
_But how can you love someone_  
_Who's more effeminate than you?_

_-More Effeminate Than You_

_Robin Black and the Intergalactic Rockstars_

* * *

 

Wendy had totally forgotten about the dinner party that night until she walks into the house and is met with the smell of roast lamb. It's gamey smelling and intrusive even over the scent of the flowers she is holding in her arms. The odor of cooking lamb is always overpowering and all the windows in the house have been opened wide to let the smell escape outside, but it will still linger for several days. She knows this from experience. Still she wouldn't dream of asking her husband to stop serving the dish. It's his specialty. His piece de resistance. He makes it whenever he has the chance, which isn't often, using whatever excuse he can to purchase whichever cut it is that comprises a lamb roast.

But he never cooks lamb for just the two of them even though he has a deep love for it. He claims it's too expensive, despite Wendy's insistence that they don't need to worry about money anymore. Not since she made partner. She makes plenty of money to take care of both of them, with Butters' meager royalty checks from his romance novels barely covering their gym memberships and Netflix bill.

Wendy's adjusting the bouquet of flowers so she can move her messenger bag onto the couch when he emerges from the kitchen to greet her. She's surprised to see him wearing her apron. It's a frilly little thing, decorated with hearts and ruffles, and she's only worn it two or three times, tops. It had been a gift from a gorilla of an ex who had hoped to see her wearing it, and only it, as she served him an elaborate Valentine's dinner. Which she had never mentioned having any interest in doing. She didn't, and still doesn't, have any idea how to cook anything more elaborate than boxed macaroni and cheese.

The ex hadn't stayed around for long. But his gift has, apparently. She hasn't seen the thing in years and didn't even realize it had even made it to this house. Where had he found it? Had he packed it up when they moved here three years ago?

“I'm so glad you're home. Oh, flowers. Thank you, they're beautiful.” he greets her, sounding out of breath. He takes the flowers from her, there's something crusty on his fingers, and is hurrying to put them in a vase on the stand by the door. “I have polenta on the stove that needs to be stirred continuously and I lost track of time and look at me I'm a mess and they'll be here any minute and I haven't even had time to comb my hair and there's a wine stain on my pants so they'll probably think I'm an alcoholic and-”

She interrupts his rambling with a kiss. His eyes flutter closed, God he has such long eyelashes, and he leans against her, seeking the comfort of her embrace. She's taller than him as it is but she's still in her work heels. He rests his head against her collarbone.

“Butters,” she soothes, touching his cheek. His face is shiny and there's something white and powdery on his cheek. “Go do what you need to do. I can take care of the polenta.”

He straightens up and nods. She kisses him again, on the top of his head, and starts towards the kitchen to get a handle on things. Before leaving the room she catches a glimpse of him untying the apron from the corner of her eye.

The polenta isn't burning yet but it is stuck to the bottom of the pan, despite the generous glob of butter her husband no doubt has already mixed into the cornmeal. She's careful to unstick the mush and stirs the hardened bit on the bottom back into the moist mixture. When she stops stirring just long enough to lean down and remove her heels the polenta starts to bubble once more.

She wonders what he plans on doing with it. Cheese polenta is always a good bet but rosemary polenta goes well with the lamb. She pours herself a glass of red wine from an open bottle on the counter, checking to make sure that it isn't Butters' cooking wine. He had scolded her last time she had accidentally drank some, not that it had been worth drinking. He buys cheap red blends for cooking with ambiguous varietals. Fine for adding to a vinaigrette, surely, but not something a thirty five-year-old woman should be drinking. This bottle is a pinot noir from 2014 so she should be fine drinking it.

He returns to the kitchen, dressed finely in a silk button down blue shirt that matches his eyes. His hair has been combed and it's still damp with mousse. He's glowing but his face isn't shiny any longer. The shirt brings out his eyes, softening his face. She can't help but think he's beautiful in the way a Renaissance oil painting of an angel is beautiful. There's just something so pure about this man.

“I forgot to ask if any of them were vegetarian,” he explains, picking up her glass of wine and drawing from it. His lips stain red. It looks like lipstick on his full lips. She sets the spoon against the side of the pan and lets him take back so. “So I ran out to get some portobellos to roast just in case but that put me behind on the berry cobbler.”

“They're just our friends,” she reminds him, touching his back. He feels warm through his shirt, slightly damp with sweat. He's overheated from running around. “Even if Heidi is doing the vegetarian thing again she's fine with just the sides.”

“Geez, there's bacon in the brussel sprouts as well,” Butter says, sounding ashamed of himself. “I could've at least left the brussel sprouts alone. Why am I so stupid?”

“You're not stupid! If you didn't put bacon in them then everybody else would've left them alone too,” she reminds him. Because bacon is what makes brussel sprouts palatable in the first place.

“They are good with the bacon,” he concedes. “And the ranch dressing powder? You like them with the ranch dressing powder?”

“Yes dear,” she rolls her eyes at his worrying, but she doesn't really mind. That's just how he is, that's how he has always been. She knew that was part of the package when she married him. He nitpicks the details and makes mountains out of molehills. Wendy's always enjoyed calming him down. She's a woman who enjoys a good challenge and keeping Butters from overreacting is an ongoing daily challenge. If worst comes to worst she can always put him down with a well-performed blowjob. He's the only man who ever looked at her like a goddess when she's on her knees, rather than some two dollar whore.

She leaves him to finish up in the kitchen and changes from her skirt and blazer into a pair of expensive jeans and moderately nice blouse. As much as she loves being a defense attorney, sometimes she regrets not joining Stan on his organic farm when the opportunity had presented itself nearly fifteen years ago. Jeans and flannel sound so much more comfortable than heels and pencil skirts. Not that she doesn't enjoy getting to dress up most days. There's a feeling of power that comes from dressing professionally. She loves the clack of her stilettos on the stone of her office's lobby, the way her clients look at her and see a strong woman with calves to die for, not some housewife with a tray of cookies like so many of her old classmates had grown up to be.

She also loves coming home after a particularly savage trial and seeing how Butters looks at her, like she's Artemis or Athena reborn, and how he practically begins to salivate. They fuck in her home office then, because he has a fetish for pretending he's her receptionist, and she keeps her clothes on with the skirt pushed up around her waist. Sometimes her heels stab at his lower back and he makes choked sobbing noises like the pleasure of it is hurting him.

“Can you get that?” Butters calls out from the kitchen a second after the doorbell begins to chime. His voice is high, as it always is when he raises it. “I'm adding the cheese to the polenta!”

“Yeah, I got it,” Wendy calls back. She stops to check the thermostat on the way to the front door, it feels uncommonly warm inside this evening. However, despite the thermometer reading at seventy-six degrees, the thermostat is only set to sixty-eight. Butters has warmed up the entire downstairs with his cooking. She wonders how long he's been at it. Aren't you not supposed to overcook lamb? Or is that duck?

It's Heidi and Jason at the door but she spots Bebe and Clyde heading up the walkway as she greets their first arrivals. Bebe and Clyde look like they're arguing, which isn't a new occurrence. They've been fighting since they first started dating, on and off, in elementary school. She used to get pissed off and threaten to go to the police when Bebe showed up with black eyes and fingerprints embedded in her arm. Until Clyde showed up one day missing a tooth. They both give as much as they get.

She greets Bebe warmly and asks Clyde about the addition to the house he's been working on. Then it's like elementary school all over again, the boys and the girls separating as soon as the door is closed behind them. Heidi and Bebe follow Wendy to the living room to see the new coffee table she had texted them about last weekend while Jason and Clyde head immediately towards the study.

Unlike Wendy's home office, the study has bookshelves full of fictional books and a reading nook built into a window seat big enough for two. Butters usually climbs in first, closest to the window, then Wendy settles down with her head on his chest as he reads aloud, the warm sun washing over them both on sleepy Sunday afternoons. They've made love there on more than one occasion.

Besides the bookshelves and reading nook, there's a full wet bar set up in the corner by the chess set and that's probably why they always gravitate towards that room. One time they had “misplaced” one of her bishops and she had found it a week later at the bottom of the large salt water aquarium that serves as a divider between the dining room and hallway. She still has no idea what happened there.

“It's like a pirate's chest,” Bebe says approvingly, nodding at Wendy's new coffee table. “Clyde would love it.”

“It looks awfully expensive though,” Heidi says, touching one of the dark maroon leather straps on it. “What did Butters say about it?”

“He likes that it has so much storage on the inside,” Wendy says. They had picked it out together, needing to replace the old scuffed up one that had been hanging around since she first moved into her old place after passing her bar exam. Wendy likes classic, old school furniture. Yellowed globes, da Vinci reproductions, and apparently pirate chest tables. Butters is more concerned with quality and neatness. This was a perfect combination of both.

“Yeah, but, I mean,” Heidi flusters, waving her hands in the air as if they can all read sign language “It must have cost a lot. He didn't complain?”

Why would he complain? They needed a table. It only cost three hundred and it would be around for years. And it's not like it's his money to complain about anyway.

“No, of course not,” Wendy says, honestly perplexed. “He has this idea to cover the surface of the old one with a glass mosaic and try to sell it at the farmer's market, but that's going to take awhile. I'll send you a picture when he finishes.”

Wendy may be the money maker in this household but Butters is the artist. He's like one of those men you imagine living in the woods, spending all his free time playing guitar and painting lakes. Except wearing a frilly pink and red apron in the meantime. She supposes she has always been attracted to artists of one sort of another. Stan had been the first. She used to lie on his bed and listen to him play the guitar, singing as his voice charmingly cracked on the high notes. Then there had been a guy in high school who had asked her to pose nude for him often while he painted her in watercolors. She had lost her virginity to him. College had been a poet with a temper. Then another painter, though he liked to paint men in the nude more than her. She supposes she is drawn to the artistic type since she herself is so based in logic.

The front doorbell chimes again and Wendy excuses herself to answer it. They're only missing one couple so she's not surprised to see Stan and Kyle at the door. She is, however, surprised to see Stan holding a squirming toddler in his arms.

“Sorry,” he grins sheepishly, his smile as boyish and innocent as the one he had on his face when he used to sing to her.“Sitter called and canceled five minutes before we were supposed to leave.”

“Did you ask Bebe's sitter if she'd watch her?” Wendy asked, slightly annoyed. It isn't that she dislikes Dolphina, but this was really supposed to be an adults-only event.

“You know I won't just leave my daughter with anybody,” Kyle says. And yes, Wendy does know that. Stan may have been the one who wanted the kid in the first place, and it may have taken him five years of bugging Kyle to consider it before it had become a reality, but now that she's here Kyle has turned into a mother bear. He won't even buy her cotton poly blends.

“It's late,” Stan says, hoisting the toddler up over his shoulder. “She's tired. I'll put her down and she'll be out in ten minutes tops, I promise.”

“Alright,” Wendy sighs, waving a hand towards the stairs. He knows where the guest rooms are. He's spent enough nights passed out in them. She's always been a sucker for that man, imagining herself marrying him and having her own children with him from a very young age. And holding onto that image until the day in eighth grade when she had walked in on him and Kyle making out in the empty biology classroom. To his credit, they had been broken up at the time.

Kyle joins the three girls in the living room, accepting a glass of wine from the small wine rack Butters has set up by his plants. It's more there for appearance than anything, he claims it's a Tuscany theme, but wine is wine.

“At least you didn't have to get you figure back after having Dolphina,” Bebe teases him, after Kyle explains why they were running late in that pinched voice of his. He hates tardiness, he sees it as a sign of incompetency.

“Well, technically, I'm the father,” Kyle points out, head tilted up just a bit. Stan's sister Shelly had been the surrogate for them, via turkey baster as Kyle likes to remind them every single time the subject comes up, so both their genes are present in their daughter. “So that means Stan is the mommy in this situation.”

“Well, duh,” Wendy says, rolling her eyes. One glimpse at how Stan interacts with their daughter and anybody would instantly dub him the “mommy.” Wendy has seen at least five matching outfits on the two of them. Well, complimentary outfits, not matching. Stan doesn't usually wear dresses.

“I'm still trying to lose the baby weight,” Heidi says, her arms going around her stomach self-consciously. Unlike Bebe and Kyle who only have one child each, conveniently around the same age, Heidi had four children. The youngest is less than three months old and despite breastfeeding she hasn't gotten back to her pre-pregnancy weight quite yet. “It's getting harder and harder to bounce back each time,” she confides.

“Well how many times do you plan on bouncing back?” Bebe asks. “You've already got enough to play a decent game of couples tennis. Do you plan on going until you can have your own soccer team?”

“Whenever Jason says we can start using protection, I guess,” Heidi squirms. She's making Wendy feel uneasy, the air going heavy with tension. “He says God will give him a sign to let me go back on the pill.”

“If Clyde tried that 'God says' shit with me I'd sock him in the nose,” Bebe says, making a fist and swinging at the air. It works, Heidi giggles and the tension is broken.

Butters has managed to set the table himself with nobody noticing, everybody gravitating towards the dining room when he rings the little silver bell he keeps in there for special occasions. It's one of those keepsake bells, the kind that's more show than use. Stan is the last one to arrive at the table, smiling at Kyle and taking his hand as they sit down together.

“She's out like a light,” he assures Wendy.

“The food looks wonderful, Butters,” Heidi compliments the blond, who lights up like he was just complimented by the queen of England. Wendy makes a note to herself to try to comment on his cooking more often. It's not that she doesn't appreciate him, she just forgets with the familiarity of their relationship.

Dinner starts out nice. Stan shares a story about his recent visit to Wisconsin. He's considering branching the company out from pasture-raised eggs to humane, organic dairy. As it is, the loose conglomerate of farmers he manages already produce the majority of humane eggs between the Mississippi and California, they're doing well enough without throwing milk into the mix.

“But some places in this county you can't get fresh, decently priced organic milk,” Stan insists, his voice excited, passionate in the way he always is when discussing animal rights. “If people have the option to buy milk from cows that are cared for and loved and allowed to roam the hillsides they will!”

“Not at double the price of the store brand,” Jason objects, waving his fork in Stan's direction. His lips are shiny with the fat from the lamb.

“With our delivery services streamlined that won't be the case,” Kyle informs him. “Our prices will compete with the more mainstream brands. I've already worked out the numbers and on average we'll only be charging fifty cents more per gallon than what the average milk buyer already pays.”

Wendy sometimes still can't believe, despite how long it's been, that Kyle dropped out of Stanford to help his boyfriend raise a bunch of chickens in their old hometown. It had seemed a ludicrous endeavor at the time, funded solely by the $20,000 bond that Stan's grandfather had left to him in his will. But here they are, ten years later, and managing the largest pasture-raised-eggs producing co-op outside of California. She has no doubt that Kyle's excellent accounting skills had played a large part in their early success.

Bebe begins to tell a story about her work, something to do with a woman getting her maid-of-honor's dress stuck on her necklace, when Clyde interrupts. His mouth is full of polenta as he talks.

“Bebe,” he says, his voice monotone, “Nobody cares about wedding clothes, stop boring everybody.”

“They do too,” Bebe bites back, “And I wasn't even talking about the clothes, I was talking about one of our customers.”

“Nobody cares about your customers because nobody cares about stupid fancy schmancy gowns. You've been telling this story all week, we all know she rips the dress at the end. Big woop. Nobody cares about some stupid bridemaid's dress.”

“I do,” Butters chirps, his voice all sunshine and daisies. Wendy loves his voice, she always has. How he manages to have a southern accent in Colorado still confuses the hell out of her but it's charming. “I love wedding gowns. Tell the rest of the story, Bebe.”

Wendy recognizes the fact her husband is trying to diffuse the situation, but she knows he also just really likes dresses. He likes window shopping at dress shops, stopping to admire cuts and lace and rhinestones. He knows more about gowns than she does, probably because he binge watches so many episodes of Say Yes to the Dress.

“Of course you care,” Jason dismisses Butters decisively, in his own house as he's eating Butters' cooking, “You're practically a chick yourself.”

“I am not!” Butters protests. His hand goes to his mouth as he realizes how loudly he was speaking. Wendy sees his eyes turn up to the ceiling, towards where Dolphina is sleeping.

“Yeah, then what the fuck are you wearing?” Jason asks, pointing with his fork at Butters' silk blue button down, “That thing is shiny. What man wears shiny clothes?”

“And you cooked this food too, didn't you?” Clyde asks, holding up a piece of Butters' prized lamb roast. It's an end piece and Wendy sees the crust of herbs and spices coating the perfectly seared edges. “This shit is better than anything Bebe's ever cooked in her life. Not natural for a man to cook.”

“Some of the greatest chefs in the world are men,” Bebe argues with her husband. She's had too much wine and her voice is beginning to slur.

“Chefs,” Clyde sneers, chewing on the lamb. It looks much less impressive as pieces between his teeth. “Not housewives. It's different when you get paid for it.”

“Sexist pig,” Kyle insults the two men on the other side of the table. He's drunk his share of wine as well and he's a lightweight, despite his recently expanding waistline.

“Yeah guys, leave Butters alone,” Stan insists, “It's his life, let him do what makes him happy.”

“This from a guy who probably massages his chicken so they have less stressful layings,” Jason says. Clyde snickers at the comment.

Wendy catches Butters' crestfallen face before he manages to hide it beneath a fake smile. She wants to bring him into her arms and coddle him, kiss him and tell him it's okay. It's okay if he's a little more in touch with his feminine side than her friends' redneck husbands. And yeah, maybe the shirt was a bit feminine. Looking at it now, the way the buttons are done up, it suddenly occurs to her that it's a woman's shirt. Why is Butters shopping in the woman's section?

Well, she knows he wears women's jeans sometimes, but that's just because he's so small. The men's jeans just don't fit him right, they hang off him like rags no matter how tightly he cinches a belt around his waist. Maybe he just saw the shirt and didn't notice it was a woman's cut? But that means her husband is currently wearing both women's slacks and a woman's shirt right now. At least his shoes are men's, right?

“Wendy, tell me,” Clyde asks, “Why did you marry Butters? Surely you could've found some butcher lesbians out there if that's your thing? Does he hold his dick out of the way when you fuck him with a strap on?”

“Clyde, stop it,” Bebe hisses, hitting her husband on the arm. It's not a soft or playful hit and Clyde yelps, rubbing at the sore spot. “Wendy, I'm sorry. Next time we do a dinner party we should leave the cavemen at home.”

“Did I tell you about what James did?” Heidi asks, changing the subject as casually as she can. And despite themselves the men begin to listen because they're all parents here, besides Wendy and Butters, and they want to be able to share their own baby stories. It turns into a competition of who has the most intelligent or most precocious or most hilarious children.

Wendy is ashamed to realize her attention is wandering. Maybe baby stories are something you appreciate more when you've had your own but a tale of a three year old pooping in a toy box is gross, not funny. Despite the laughter coming from every other person at the table. Butters included. But Butters loves children. He's been pestering her about them lately in that subtle, nudging way he does. Picking out little girl dresses at Target and gushing over how cute they are. Or pointing to a bunk bed with a desk built into the bottom and saying how handy that would be for a child's bedroom.

It's not that she doesn't want children, she just doesn't feel ready yet. She's not ready to give up her freedom or easy lifestyle. Besides, she often works sixty hour weeks right now and that's not very conducive to child rearing. Yes, she knows realistically that Butters would do most of the hard work there but she still would appreciate having time to see the little version of herself she brings into the world. Before they're grown up and sent away to college to start their own lives. But still, part of her also knows if she wants to have a biological child her time is running short and Jesus, wouldn't they have an adorable child together? With Butters' softness and her own striking variety of beauty. She'd love a daughter with her eyes and his hair. Butters has such good baby-making genes.

Pft. A butch lesbian? A butch lesbian couldn't help her bring a child into this world. A butch lesbian couldn't get her pregnant. Of course Butters is a man.

“Heidi,” Jason scolds, breaking Wendy from her thoughts. “Put that down, you've had enough.”

Her friend is holding the serving prongs for the lamb in one hand, evidently going for seconds on the meat. Her face flushes and she drops the fork back into place. Jason puts some more of the chopped kale salad on her plate instead. Wendy bites at her lip to stop another argument from erupting. They barely got over the last one.

“Stan,” she says, turning to her ex-boyfriend. “Didn't you say Dolphina threw up on Craig in the line at the grocery store last week?”

The man's face lit up with excitement as he hurried to share his story of the most stoic man in South Park sobbing like a baby over his ruined cashmere sweater.

 

* * *

 

“Well, that could've gone better,” Wendy sighs from the bathroom, removing her bra as the bath runs. She's been awake going on seventeen hours now and she's exhausted. She just wants to lay in hot water and read a trashy romance novel. Not one of her husband's though, his are too tame. Like you can get halfway through one of his damn books before the characters share their first kiss. And when they do finally get around to doing the deed, the way he describes it you imagine all the characters looking like they're from an eighties glamour shoot.

“Do you need a massage?” Butters asks, padding into the bathroom in his PJ bottoms and socked feet, toothbrush hanging from his mouth. He's wearing his favorite pair of socks, the ones with the kittens holding an Atari 2600 joystick. He has a matching shirt too, they came as a set, but he's not wearing it right now. He's shirtless, showing off smooth, perfect skin, just the slightest bulge to his biceps. He's all leanness and sinew.

“No, I just need to unwind, a bath sounds perfect” she tells him. He spits into the sink and rinses off the toothbrush. He tastes of cinnamon when he kisses her, his mouth somehow both hot and cold at the same time, the height difference between them lessened now that she's barefoot.

She waits for him to leave the bathroom, she always locks the door during her baths. Not because she's doing anything particularly offensive, she just likes the occasional promise of solitude. But he doesn't leave the bathroom. Not immediately. He pulls away from her and starts kissing her breasts, all peppery brushes of his full lips. She watches him. She always likes watching him. He's nothing like the other men she dated, Stan or the ones from highschool or college. He's much smaller and more fair, almost hairless besides the dark blond pubic hair and slightly lighter hair under his arms. He has no happy trail, no chest hair, no ass hair – thank God for the last one because he loves being rimmed by her. He could be a flat chested girl.

No, he's not a girl, she assures himself. He has a cock. A big cock. She had been surprised the first time she had held it in her hand by the size, it was probably the biggest one she'd ever seen in real life.

She hadn't been his first, he said there had been girls in college. But none in South Park. They never knew what they were missing, none of the town does. And it's all hers now. To ride and suck whenever she wants. Despite the size there's still something elegant about it, the shape is perfect, the veins downplayed. When she used to read her mom's trashy books she left in the bathroom as a pre-teen she hadn't been able to imagine what an “angry red cock” looked like. Then she had the misfortune of seeing them in real life. But nobody would ever describe Butters' dick as menacing, if anything it seems as happy and excited as a puppy to see you, wagging its tail in gratitude.

But not right now, evidently, because he pulls away when she tries to reach for it. He's soft in his pajama bottoms. He uses his mouth on her instead and she grips his head, at first, to keep herself from falling, her legs going weak. Butters is a tease like this, he loves going down on her and he does it in the most inconvenient places. She ends up steadying herself on one leg by pressing her palm against the wall, her other leg going over his shoulder, her heel digging into his back. He's good at it, he's always been a good student, and he uses his mouth and fingers, bringing her from bare arousal to climax in five minutes flat. He stands up and she leans against him at the end, his smaller body supporting her weight as his hand moves between her legs. He kisses her through her orgasm.

Wendy pants into her husband's ear, head spinning. The soft hair at his temple tickles her nose.

“Feel better?” he asks, his voice tender.

She nods. It's not as good as having him inside her but it's late. They usually make love Saturday mornings, she can wait. He kisses her again and washes his hands before heading back into the bedroom.

The tub is nearly overflowing now. She turns off the water and steps in, letting some of the liquid drain out so it doesn't overflow before submerging her body. It smells like roses and vanilla, some bubble bath that Butters had picked up at the mall a month ago. It's the same scent he uses in his hair and she finds it even more comforting as she closes her eyes and lets herself doze off. She doesn't bother with a romance novel, she doesn't need one. She already had the most loving man she's ever met waiting for her in bed.

She startles awake when she realizes he had made her cum the same way any woman could.

 

* * *

 

They have sex in the morning, slow and gentle as always, and Wendy falls asleep immediately after. She feels satisfied but not sore between her legs. He never pounds into her unless she begs for it, which isn't often. He's too big to take that regularly. He's slow and thorough and deep and he kisses her throughout the entire thing, stopping only to suckle and bite lightly at her breasts.

When she awakens for a second time the other side of the bed is made and there's a freshly picked rose on the pillow next to her. She recognizes it as being from Butters' flower garden. She picks it up and inhales the strong perfume.

She finds Butters in his room. While she has the study and her home office, he uses one of the spare rooms for his own hobbies. One of the bedrooms reserved for the children they don't have. While her two rooms are full of books and historical artifacts she likes to collect (her bachelors was in medieval history) Butters has his writing desk and his sewing machine. He's sewing something lacy and red and her first thought, inexplicably, is that he's making himself lingerie. She stares, aghast, without him noticing. But then he stands and holds up the fabric, it's much too large for lingerie. A dress? No, too large for that.

He notices her in the doorway, coffee mug in her hand. He smiles at her and she observes that he's wearing his robe still. It's canary yellow and has matching duck slippers.

“I almost finished up the curtains yesterday but had to call it quits to make dinner,” he explains. “I just wanted to get them up before we go to the farmer's market.”

“You're making curtains?” she asks, cocking an eyebrow. She can't imagine why they need curtains, all their curtains are fine. What window needs new curtains? Especially red lacy ones?

“I told you the front room was getting too much sun,” he explains, “It's hitting the fish tank and we're getting algae. These will help block the light better than those hideous yellow ones you brought from your old place.”

“Hey!” she objects. “I like those curtains.”

“I know you do,” he snickers. “Come on, help me put them up.”

They're perfect. All of Butters' sewing projects are perfect. He used to teach a sewing class on the side, back when he was working as a part time dog walker. Which is how they stumbled back into each others life in the first place.

They had traveled to opposite sides of the country for college, Butters in the northwest, Wendy in the northeast. Somehow though they both ended up back in South Park in their mid-20's, Wendy starting out at the bottom of the ladder at a local law firm, Butters living with his parents as he tried to scrape together money through dog walking, sewing classes, and his bad romance novels. Back then Wendy had owned a small white Jack Terrier that she was never home to feed or walk. She hadn't realized Butters was the dog walker she had hired until showed up the first morning, a German Shepherd and a Pomeranian already in tow. The dog didn't stick around, he lives with Wendy's grandmother now. But Butters did.

“Do you remember that first morning you showed up to take Toffee for a walk?” Wendy asks once they arrive at the farmer's market. Butters is carrying the straw basket he uses for shopping here.

“Of course I do,” Butters beams at her, “You were wearing those gray yoga pants with the letters down the leg and a hot pink sports bra. I kept trying to not look at you because I felt like a pervert seeing you in your pajamas.”

“That was my work out gear,” she reminds him, “I was going to yoga.”

“Well, I know that now,” he says, faking exasperation. “But how would I know that back then?”

She watches him squeeze a few tomatoes, checking them for ripeness. He adds a few to the pay-by-the-weight bag and then picks up a small watermelon and inspects it. It looks perfect to her, uniformly dark green and light green, like a watermelon you'd see on television. He sets it down and picks up a different one. This one has a big yellow spot on one side and the color is paler. He puts this one in the basket.

“The other one looks nicer,” she observes.

“This one will taste nicer,” he nods. “The uglier the watermelon the better the taste. You want one with a big yellow spot, it means it had time to ripen on the vine longer.”

Wendy isn't sure if that's a good thing but, well, she's not the chef in the family. She follows Butters around for another ten minutes as he picks out various vegetables to cook with throughout the week, watching him pay the local farmers with cash. She wonders if it's his own money or if he withdrew it from their joint bank account. It doesn't matter. Or it shouldn't matter, anyway. It's never mattered before.

But she's thinking again about last night. About the comments that Butters is basically a chick. Which means Wendy is just a repressed lesbian. The idea is ridiculous, she isn't a homophobe. If she was a lesbian she'd just be a lesbian.

Right?

“Do you miss the dogs?”

“The ones I used to walk?” her husband guesses.

“Yeah. They always seemed so happy to be with you.”

“Oh shoot,” Butters smiles and it's all sugar and sweetness. “They were just happy to be going for a walk is all. But gee, I guess they did like me an awful lot. They would all jump all over me and lick me whenever I opened the door.”

“Dogs know nice people when they see them,” Wendy says. They're walking back towards the car. There's a green area in front and a bunch of children are playing in a sprinkler, their screams of laughter cutting through the air. “Did you want a dog? We've never discussed getting a pet.”

“A pet?” Butters furrows his brow. He slows down and watches the kids running on the grass. One of them slips and he takes a step forward, reflexively, but the girl is back up and running after her sister. “I guess a cat would be nice. But to be perfectly honest I wouldn't mind extending our family in other ways.

  
“Butters,” she sighs. “I know you want a baby. I promise, we'll have one. Just give me a couple more years.”

  
“I'm not in no rush or nothing,” he hurries to say, “I just, well. We're thirty-five now and that's the age where stuff starts going wrong, you know? Not that you have to do the carrying. We could adopt, or have a surrogate if you don't want the stretch marks.”

“I want to have our baby myself,” she assures, trying to ignore the children shrieking in the background. They're no more easier to ignore than her own ticking biological clock. “Just not right now. I still have nearly two more years on the IUD. We can discuss it then.”

She always tells him that. It's not enough. Of course she could just have the IUD removed earlier, but she's not ready. She just isn't.

But Kyle said he wasn't either and look at him now. As in, literally, look at them. Because she spots them across the street as she climbs into the driver's seat. The entire little family of three are on the sidewalk, Kyle eating an ice cream cone as Stan and Dolphina share one. Kyle holds out his cone to his daughter and she shakes her head, pushing him away, as the two men laugh. His cone is green so it could be pistachio or mint or avocado even. Stan looks like he's just eating strawberry.

Butters must see them as well because he sighs but when she glance at him he's just staring at the basket of vegetables in his lap.

 

* * *

 

Wendy looks at her best friend and just shakes her head. Bebe keeps her own head low, her baseball cap even lower, and doesn't look at the waiter as they order. The waiter still stares at her, the black eye too large and obvious to not see.

“Please don't say anything,” Bebe pleads, “He ended up getting stitches so really, he got it worse than I did.”

She just shakes her head again. What's the point? They've had this talk so many times before and it doesn't do any good. She just sips from her mimosa and wishes Butters was here to diffuse the tension. He's good at that, with his constantly cheerful demeanor and endless supply of lighthearted topics.

But he's off with Craig and Tweek somewhere, doing something “male,” whatever that may be. He loves brunch but he insists on Wendy having alone time with her girlfriends at least twice a month. Last time he went off with Craig and Tweek he came back with his ear pierced. Dear God, don't let him come back with a tattoo this time. At least, not on his face.

“You don't remember how it feels to be with a real man is all,” Bebe insists as they're eating their frittatas. “They all have tempers. If you don't push them they can be as gentle as a puppy, but I can't help myself, I just like to provoke him.”

“That's not true,” Wendy objects, “No man should ever hit a woman. And I don't want to be a bitch here, but could you please stop insulting my husband by claiming he's not a real man?”

“You know what I mean,” Bebe says, rolling her eyes. Then she puts her hand over her right eye, as if just that motion had caused her a twinge of pain. “I know he has a dick and all, God you love to brag about the size. Which, by the way, you still haven't shown me pictures of.”

“I told you I was never showing you pictures,” Wendy cuts in.

“I showed you Clyde's.”

“You texted me a picture of it in high school without even warning me,” Wendy replies. She pokes at her frittata, the thought of Clyde's dick is making her nauseous. It's a deformed thing, a weird angle to one side, with an oddly fat head and narrow base. She hasn't seen it in real life but Bebe places it at about six inches, making it a good two inches shorter than her husband's. “I didn't want to see it.”

“The point is,” Bebe drawls, “We're supposed to be bffs. Which means we share everything. Even our husbands penises.”

“I'm not swinging with you, Bebe.”

“Oh please,” she scoffs, picking up her drink. “Like I'd touch Butters with a ten foot pole. Even if he is as big as you claim I could never get wet for a guy like him. Fucking him would be like fucking a chihuahua.”

“Bebe!” Wendy cries out. “God, how many times do I have to ask you to stop talking about him like that?”

She's starting to get annoyed by how her friends talk about her husband. There had been a lot of jabs at the beginning, when she had confided she was dating Butters of all people. He had been far from popular in elementary school and even less so in high school. In elementary school he had been like one of those birds that peck at the skin of large animals, feeding off their fleas and flies, but noticed as a helpful, necessary part of the food chain. In high school he was more like a worm, buried so deeply beneath the ground the larger animals never even saw him.

First the jabs had just been simply because it was Butters. Then they started making fun of the fact he walked dogs for a living. When the truth about the romance novels had leaked there had been nonstop teasing for a solid month. But when he gave up his dog walking business and began keeping house? That's when the jokes about her snagging herself a “wife” had started coming through.

Is it that bad to want the man she loves to not have to suffer through some shitty job he hates?

Okay, maybe he didn't hate walking dogs, but it barely paid anything. He has a masters in Creative Writing, he shouldn't be walking dogs with a masters.

But maybe that's what people with degrees in Creative Writing do end up doing for a living. If they don't find rich, successful women to support them.

“I'm just saying,” Bebe drones on. “I couldn't get wet for a man who hangs around baking cookies in an apron all day. I like my men with hair on their chest and money in their bank account. Doesn't it make him feel impotent, not to have a real job?”

“He's writing a real novel,” Wendy says distractedly. Butters has been writing a “real novel” for overs two years now but she doesn't mention that. She's wondering how Bebe knew about the apron. Did she mention that? Did he go out somewhere wearing it?

“Sure, Wendy, I bet it will be a best seller,” Bebe challenges. “How To Win The Woman Of Your Dreams With Your Best Cake Recipes.”

“He doesn't wear an apron,” Wendy says defensively, realizing a second too late she's now behind in this conversation.

“I saw him wearing it when he went to get the mail,” Bebe giggles, “It's okay. It was cute, it suits him.”

Wendy groans to herself because, well, it's sort of embarrassing. It's one thing when he's just wearing it in the kitchen to protect himself from grease splatter, but out in public? No wonder they've been saying she secretly wants a girl. It's not one of those masculine Kiss The Cook aprons. It's practically lingerie, like one of those French maid fetish outfits.

And thinking about that, Wendy realizes she's doing the same thing as that gorilla ex, imagining Butters serving her pancakes in bed wearing nothing but that apron. She thinks of him turning around to fetch the juice off the tray and seeing his smooth, tiny little rump. And how fun it would be to reach over and slap it, hear the little squeak of surprise he'd make.

Fuck her sideways. She knows she's seen that scene before. In a porn. And in the porn the maid had been a woman and yes, she had squeaked in that same way Butters does when she puts him over her lap for a spanking.

What kind of woman spanks her husband anyway?

What kind of woman rims her husband?

What kind of woman fucks her husband with a strap on?

God, maybe she is a lesbian?

 

* * *

 

Butters is already home by the time her brunch is over. The brunch had spread out nearly four hours, their bottomless mimosas filled and refilled until their waiter was barely pouring any more champagne into their glasses and they were stuck with almost pure orange juice. Despite this fact, Wendy arrives home a couple miles past tipsy, happy for the Uber that she and Bebe always share on these outings. She has trouble kicking her shoes off near the entrance way and silently curses Butters in her head for having a “no shoes” rules. She paid for the damn place, she should be able to scuff up the floor if she damn well feels like it.

She manages to sneak up on him in her socked feed like some drunken, silent-footed ninja.

He's back at the sewing machine, a Bloody Mary at his side, and there's more of that lacy red fabric spread out in front of him. She stands in the doorway, arms crossed against her chest because she suddenly finds she doesn't know what to do with them, and watches him for a long time. He doesn't notice her, the hum of the machine too loud, too deafening. He stops to take small sips from the Bloody Mary, ice clanking against the glass.

Wendy considers what Clyde or Jason would be doing right now. Probably watching a football game or playing the PS4. She considers what Stan or Kyle could be doing. Stan might be out shoveling manure, Kyle at his desk going over numbers. Her own father used to do yard work on Sunday afternoons.

They have a gardener. They don't do any of their own yard work.

Whatever Clyde or Jason are doing right now they're probably drinking beer. Or whiskey. But not a fucking Bloody Mary. That's such a chick drink. It's not like he's out to brunch right now just drinking whatever option is endless. He had to have purposely gone to the store and picked up Bloody Mary mix, brought it home, and mixed himself a drink. If he was at the store he could've picked up some damn beer.

Has she ever seen him drink a beer?

Yes, some fruity lambik, he drinks it sometimes during Octoberfest. To “get into the spirit.”

She knocks on the door to catch his attention. He jumps nearly a foot into the air and breathes out his nose. He's in the center of her sight, looking small and flat. She realizes she has a serious case of tunnel vision right now. Maybe she's drunker than she thought.

“You startled me,” he tells her, turning his back again. She can see his shoulder blades sticking out against the thin t-shirt he's wearing as he bends over. It's too thin for a man's shirt. Only women's shirts have fabric than thin. He's wearing another girl's shirt, she thinks to herself.

“What are you doing?” she asks, her voice going flat. She feels angry suddenly. Angry that he's drinking a chick drink and wearing chick clothes and doing some chick hobby because she's not gay. She likes men. She likes dick.

“Well, I saw the curtains when I walked in,” he says. His tongue is stuck out on the left side of his mouth as he concentrates. “And I was thinking they looked really nice. But then I thought about how you could see them from the dining room and I got this idea to make matching napkins for the dining room, since I have extra cloth.”

“You're sitting in here making napkins?”

“Yes,” he confirms, nodding his head. He lets off the foot pedal.

“Lacy red napkins?”

“Well, yeah,” he looks down at them, and holds up one finished one as an example. “Aren't they pretty?”

Yes, they're pretty. They look like a pair of women's panties. Did Butters ever wear lacy red panties before? Her mind feels muddled but she feels like..no, they had been white panties. But why had he been wearing panties in the first place? He's a man, God dammit.

“Why don't you go outside and change the fucking oil in the SUV,” she barks out at him. Her voice sounds fuzzy to her own ears.

“What?” he asks, brow furrowing. He turns in his chair to look at her. “I just took it in for the oil change two weeks ago.”

“Then rotate the fucking tires,” she says, throwing up her arms. “Or rebuild the damn engine. I don't know.”

“What are you going on about?”

He's standing up now, walking towards her, and before she can say anything he's trying to hug her. She pushes him away. Not gently, but with a shove that throws him back several feet.

“Be a man!” she says sharply, then her voice goes louder, “Go buy some fucking Coors! And none of that lite shit” She slams the door as she storms out of the room. The she locks the bedroom door behind her and falls into their bed with a grunt. It smells like vanilla and rose and she's on the verge of tears, but she's drunk so she falls asleep quickly and dreams about Clyde wearing red panties as he marries Butters, while she and Bebe elope to Hawaii together in matching suits.

 

* * *

 

It's dark out when Wendy wakes up with a headache and a queasy stomach. The kind of hangover where you drank too much sweet liquor and went to sleep too quickly afterwards. It'll pass soon. She shuffles towards the door and tries to open it, surprised when she finds its locked.

She feels dread when she remembers why.

“Fuck,” she groans, screwing her eyes shut in regret. He probably thinks she's mad at him. They don't fight often but when they do he turns into an emotional wreck.

She expects to find him crying on the couch but he's not there. He's not in his room. He's not in the study or the kitchen or either of the bathroom. She throws on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt and grabs her keys, panicking. What if he has left her? What if he's already out there looking for an attorney to draw up the divorce papers? Her first thought is to check Craig and Tweek's house because they're the only one he hangs out with on his own.

Wendy doesn't make it that far. She doesn't even make it to her car. Because there, in the garage, is Butters. Wearing a pair of ripped jeans and a white tank top. Bent over the open hood of his SUV, the sound of pounding echoing across their yard.

She sighs in relief and hugs him tightly from behind. He stiffens.

“What are you doing?” she asks, her voice apologetic, coaxing him like he's a wild stallion needing to be lured close with kind words and sugar cubes.

“Changing the oil,” he says stiffly. “Like you asked me to.”

“You just got it changed two weeks ago,” she points out.

“Yeah, well.” He attempts to shrug her off. She tightens her grip on him and rests her cheek between his sharp, delicate shoulder blades. He smells like oil. There's some on his hands, an open bottle of the stuff next to his feet.

“Come on, come inside,” she tugs at his arm. “I was drunk, I didn't mean any of that.”

“I'm just doing what you said,” he insists. He's being passive aggressive. She recognizes this fact immediately. Following her orders too closely so she can't claim he was being a bad husband. “Let me finish the oil change and I'll go inside and, I don't know, fix the garbage disposal.”

“Is there something wrong with the garbage disposal?” she asks.

“There will be once I pour some sand down it.”

She laughs. Now he's starting to sound like a man. Tense, stupid, and argumentative.

She doesn't like it.

She prefers her kind, soft spoken, sweet husband.

“Butters, come inside, please. I have an upset stomach, make me some ginger tea.”

He softens against her, some of the hardness leaving his body. He likes to take care of her. He doesn't like when she's sick or in pain or sad. The slightest hint of sniffles always has him tucking her into bed and rubbing her chest with Vicks.

“After I finish up here,” he says, his voice all faux-manly. He doesn't sound angry any longer but his voice isn't that deep naturally. She wonders if it's aggravating his throat to speak like that. She thinks he's trying to sound like John Wayne or some other protagonist from a cowboy movie. Just sit back little lady, we'll save your homestead from the trainjackers.

He goes back to unscrew the top.

“Butters,” she says as gently as she can. “That's the windshield wiper fluid.”

There's a long pause.

“It is?” All the deepness has disappeared from his voice.

“Yeah, honey.”

He sighs and steps back, dropping the wrench on the ground. Who knows why he tried to open the cap with a wrench, it doesn't even look like it needs one.

“I don't know crap about cars,” he confesses. He's rubbing his knuckles together in a way he hasn't done in a long time. It's an old nervous habit of his, when he was more self conscious and more frightened of life in general. She grabs his hands and kisses his knuckles. They're already pink from the friction. His fingertips are black with oil.

“I know,” she tells him. “And now you're all dirty. Come on, let's go take a bath together.”

"Can we use the new bath bombs I bought?"

"Of course."

"And the candles?"

"Wouldn't be a bath without them," she says, pulling him towards the door. "No champagne though, I wasn't lying about feeling queasy."


End file.
